Three Deaths
by missmissyeyes
Summary: Young Albus confronts his closest friend, Gellert. But he is three deaths too late. Oneshot.


It was cold. Albus could feel the snow seeping behind his collar and melting under the fever, sending cold water dripping down his back. The two of them only wore their black cloaks, which made it easy for Albus to spot him there, standing in the open between the oaks. The branches seemed to contort around him, its gray claws reaching for his body, the icicles hanging dangerously above his head.

"Gellert," Albus said, even though he knew Gellert would sense his presence. He had no reason not to. He was still Albus's friend, as much as he would pretend not to be.

Gellert turned around. His hood casted dark, black shadows over his face, though it looked blue in the dusk. Albus could see his mouth, however, delicate and pale, even for a nineteen year old boy. It was pulled a tight, thin line, and he was biting the left side of his bottom lip, like he always did when he was contemplating. It was only after his shoulders seemed to drop, and he lifted two snow-pale hands to push his hood back, revealing his blonde, curly hair. Albus realized he had trimmed it since the last time he had saw him, though his bangs still fell carelessly over his forehead, covering his eyelashes and just reaching the deep blue of his eyes.

"_May I?" Gellert asked, holding out a thin, pale hand. Albus handed the pouch to him before taking a couple of steps back and sitting in his old, wooden chair. He was too tall to sink into the cushions as Gellert had._

"_Do you think it may be it?" Albus asked. His words in his throat were small and coarse. Gellert looked at him—really looked at him, for the first time—the flame on his desk flashing in his blue eyes. They were like ice, and Albus felt a pang because he realized Gellert had not once asked him where he had been all that time._

"_I think so," Gellert said. His words sounded reserved, but his voice had a certain tone of excitement that he sounded like he wanted to contain. And Albus, knowing him most felt it, and he felt his insides warm, despite the exhaustion that made his bones and muscles ache. . . ._

"Albus," was all he said. It was a mere murmur, but was easy to hear in the open air. If he did not know any better, it would have sounded almost sad. But Albus did know better, and he saw the slow coldness in his eyes. "It's been a long time, my friend."

It had been a year. One year. "It has," Albus said. Gellert only stared at him, his arms loose at his sides. It almost looked like defeat, but again, Albus knew better. "You have to stop," he said. It sounded abrupt, too rehearsed, and Gellert cocked his head over to the side, seemingly amused.

"I can't run much more from you, can I?"

"No," Albus said. "You cannot."

Gellert closed his eyes for a moment, then raised his arms to pull his hood over his head again. He turned, then walked away from Albus as if he were a ghost, and not actually there, speaking with him.

"Gellert!" Albus warned, but he was still walking, and Albus ran forward, his boots crushing the snow. He clenched his wand in his hand as Gellert looked back and ran forward himself, but did not raise it.

They ran through the thicket, and Albus could feel the branches scratching him, the ice crashing around him, but could not bring himself to care. It had been a while, and he was breathing heavily, his fever pounding in his temples, bringing an ache in his bones.

Then there was a flash coming through the branches of the trees, and Albus clattered into the snow.

_And as if sensing Albus's discomfort, Gellert carefully pushed the pouch into his pocket before taking Albus by the arm and guiding him to the couch. The springs groaned from under them. It was next to the window, where the summer breeze rustled Gellert's silver blonde hair—in all directions where in touched it, as he did when he was distressed—making it stick to the delicate crook of his jaw, his lips taught into a tight, thin line. " I am sorry Albus," he said. """I know I ask too much of you."_

"_No," Albus croaked, brushing his fingers through his own red, wavy hair. "We only ask too much of each other," he said, before letting his fingers brush Gellert's wrist, moving under the silky fabric of his sleeve, into the bandage that lay there. Gellert mouth opened slightly, as if to say something, but he only slouched into the cushions. His other hand touched his own arm, and he closed his eyes for a second, absentminded. He had almost forgotten he had tried to retrieve the stone first. . . ._

"Gellert!" Albus strained, pushing himself up and running after him again. Gellert looked back, and beyond the snow and the blur of their running, he couldn't read his expression. "You can't run forever!" he said, though he could hear only the tire in his own voice. But he kept running, pushing the branches of the trees out of his way.

It was only then Gellert slipped on the snow, and Albus took the chance, seizing him. He sat on him, pinning him into the snow, and Gellert's wand was a few feet over, lodged into the ground. Gellert groaned, though it seemed to be more out of resignation and pain, rather than surprise.

Albus turned him over, and though Gellert struggled under his grip he was unsuccessful. He just let his head fall back onto the snow, which wet his hair into darker curls. And when Albus gripped his shoulders, he only scrunched his eyes closed, his eyebrows furrowing. "I won't let you do this," Albus said. "I won't let you make any more wrong choices."

Gellert only snorted, and Albus shook him, his voice raising. "I can forgive you," he said. He sounded strained. "We—we make mistakes. We do things we shouldn't. But I can forgive you. It can be like old times. We can put this behind us. And no one will know. No one."

He could remember it: his brother's face contorting when he overheard he and Gellert, the raising voices, Ariana pushed into a corner in the cloud of cold magic. The scream. Then him awaking to soft cries, his brother at his sister's side.

Albus visibly shook it from his mind. His brother will never know. His sister was sweet and kind—she would forgive him.

Gellert smiled, showing his teeth, but said nothing. Albus shook him again, and his body was pushed harder into the snow.

"_Albus," Gellert said, and he opened his eyes to see Gellert there, startlingly close. His lips were open slightly, his eyes drooped, lashes low. It made him shiver, and he knew it wasn't the cold air. He leaned closer, but his forehead relaxed into Albus's shoulder, and like always, he found something in him to forgive him. He always had. And one day, he thought, that would be the end of him. He was, after all, only a collection of broken bones and strained muscle on the couch._

"_What is it?" Albus asked, his voice low. He let one hand on the small of Gellert's back, and rested it there, between the tense muscles in his shoulder blades. . . ._

"Please, Gellert!" Albus said. "This dark magic—it's changing you—you're different every time I see you—" but he stopped when Gellert opened his eyes, staring back at him, though definitely not amused.

"Don't pretend you don't know dark magic, Albus," he said. His words were venom, but strangely sweet, as if some kind of saccharine drooping cold under his skin. He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, and he shivered, but Albus only gripped his wand tighter in his hand. He let go of his shoulders, resigned, but let them trail up to his hands, pushing them farther into the snow.

Albus, too, remembered that night, though differently. A man with tattered clothes grasping at Gellert's feet, his nails broken with dirt, his mouth split open mixed with blood and salty tears, his face contorted with ugly beseechment. The way his life left his eyes the almost exact moment Gellert raised a wand Albus had not yet seen between his spindly fingers, releasing a howl and a blinding flash of green light. And as soon as the man had been alive, he was there—dead—at Gellert's feet, Gellert immovable and reserved, Albus agape, his heart in his throat almost choking him to his knees.

"I don't pretend, Gellert," he said. "I know what dark magic looks like. I have seen it."

"You have felt it," Gellert said. "You know its power." His face was contorted, a half-smile etched on his face. Albus had never seen him looked so deranged, but he was still beautiful. An angel with blood on its hands.

Albus remembered the stone cold in his hand, Ariana staring at him with unblinking, empty eyes. "It is also cold," Albus said. "An ice that travels in your bones. Quick. Easy. Wicked."

Gellert laughed, and for a second he seemed like Gellert again, his face relaxed into his chemistry set, his fingers fumbling over its instruments. They were the same: both brilliant, cunning, adventurous. Ambitious.

_"I want to have this done," Gellert said. He had not moved from where he was, his forehead on his shoulder. His hair tickled Albus's skin._

_"What?"Albus asked._

_"I want to have this—this all—done," he said again._

_"Why?" Albus asked, though he knew the answer, and did not want to hear it again. He could feel Gellert's lips on the skin of his neck now, light and almost unnoticeable, and he wanted to shy away, but didn't._

_"Because it's what we deserve, of course," he said. His voice, his tone, was nothing but soft. Albus could have sworn he was only talking about his home, the contortion of green valleys and white mountains, the warmth of the Durmstrang Institute. But he was not—he never was—and that's what scared Albus, though not what scared him most . . . ._

Gellert lifted his head off the snow, as far as he could without Albus preventing him. He was more relaxed, and as much as Albus tried to brace for it, there was nothing stopping him. "Come on," he said. His words were slow, sweet and longing, like a phoenix's cry, but his tongue snaking over Albus's lips were like a snake's.

He leaned into it, though slightly, and before he knew it he felt a hand on his neck, in his red curls, pulling him closer. All he could register was how unnaturally cold he was, the bones in his arms and back empty and light, his eyelashes grazing his skin. Albus only leaned closer, letting his hands travel up his back, the snow and his skin in his hands. He could feel his goose bumps prickling over his skin where he touched, the gasp in the other's mouth and the nails in his neck when he pulled him closer into him. Albus tried to pull away, but Gellert only pulled him down farther, and his mouth on his neck, and though he shouldn't of Albus took the invitation, lightly trailing his lips over the skin there before he kissed that part of his neck where his neck and shoulders connected, letting his teeth graze the skin.

Gellert only pulled him in further, and Albus tucked his knees into the snow harder, pushing them up farther with the force he put into the other. It was only then the hand on his neck pulled him onto his lips again, and Albus took it. It was light, soft, and when Gellert broke away, his cheek was on his, blocking his view.

He paused, his breath in his ear, before he said: "You've a fever, Albus."

It was only then he saw a flash, and everything went black.

_Gellert sat up, though not without snaking a cool hand over his shoulders, just lightly grazing the skin behind his neck there. He bit his lip—the bottom left—when he looked at Albus, who stared back. "What is it?" he asked, but Albus only shook his head._

"_Nothing," he said, but he looked down, playing with his fingers in his lap. They were cut, still bleeding a little in places, but he took no notice of it until Gellert touched them and brought them together in his hand, though without removing his other from Albus's neck. The blood stained the other's pale skin like scarlet in snow. Albus knew. It didn't come suddenly—nothing was ever sudden, no—but there, in the warmth, he knew. His head throbbed some more._

_Gellert pulled him in, his lips on his slipping over them like ice. Although he did not want to, Albus felt his own hands pull away from his when he pushed him onto his back, the springs on the couch growing looser and looser under their weight. He could feel his hips pressing onto his, the warmth of it despite the cold of Gellert's skin, his arms coming to rest behind his neck, pulling his curls._

_Albus let his hands trail over the small of his back, where the fabric of his shirt rode up, and touched the skin there. Feeling a gasp escape from his lips and a shiver rock his body onto his, Albus trailed his hand farther and farther until it rested between his shoulder blades once more, but Gellert jerked away, breaking their kiss._

_Albus stared back at him. He was panting, his lips parted red and raw. His skin was flushed, his shirt disheveled under Albus's grip. "You've a fever, Albus," he said._

"_I know," Albus answered. He let himself rest his head on the arm of the couch. Gellert got up again, though this time he made it back to his desk. In the corner of his eye, he could see him take the pouch out of his pocket and open it. He pulled the stone out, letting it rest in his palm. He examined it for a while, and though Albus did not look, he knew the expression on his face. He did not want to look. He only wanted to see the Gellert he knew—thought he knew—smiling into his work, relishing on every success with a grin. But no. That wasn't it._

_He could feel it._

A/N: This is my first fanfic in a while, so please treat as such. This is my interpretation of their relationship: Gellert manipulative and Albus, feeding in to it. Yeahh. Review if you have something nice to say. :D


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